


And Perhaps, Joy

by jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Light Angst, M/M, POV Qui-Gon Jinn, Post-Coital Cuddling, Qui-Gon Lives, QuiObi Week 2017, Revelations, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 20:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: Obi-Wan's hardest truth is learned in those moments on Naboo.  Two years later, Qui-Gon finds out what that is.





	And Perhaps, Joy

“Qui-Gon?”

He would answer that voice, of course, he always would … just as soon as he got his brain stuffed back inside his head.

“Master? You're, I didn't – Please? Look at me?”

Qui-Gon opened his eyes.

Obi-Wan was leaned up over him, tucked close along Qui-Gon's side: a vision of flushed skin, bright eyes, and tangled copper hair. “There you are,” Obi-Wan said, low-voiced, peeling strands of hair off of Qui-Gon's sweaty forehead. “You had me almost worried. Did I – I didn't hurt you?”

Silly padawan. Silly former padawan. “Of course not. You couldn’t,” Qui-Gon murmured, and put together enough control to squeeze Obi-Wan's waist before stroking warm, moist skin. “It was as beautiful as I could have imagined. It has just been – quite some time, for me.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I confess, I did wonder.”

“Did you?” Qui-Gon asked, teasing.

That got him a small, wry sort of glare. “I went through adolescence with you _right_ _there_ ; of course I did,” Obi-Wan said, and flicked two fingers lightly against Qui-Gon's bare chest, a tiny tease of his own that warmed Qui-Gon's heart.

His former student was still too solemn and serious, particularly – most especially – in light of this new, longed-for thing between them. It would be Qui-Gon's duty and pleasure to whittle away the rest of the inhibitions. Obi-Wan had never been terribly open, but there had always been a distinct air of mischief beneath the Jedi-taught mien. The reservation that mantled him these days, though, in the two years since Naboo, was stiff even for him.

Qui-Gon missed his smile.

“I knew you were a sexual being.” Obi-Wan looked abruptly, charmingly awkward, in a way Qui-Gon hadn't seen since the aforementioned adolescent years. “But I didn't know ...” A shrug. “You seemed to be – alone, for a long time. Was there …?” That well-worn furrow appeared between Obi-Wan's eyebrows again. “Has there not been … anyone … for you?”

Qui-Gon shrugged one shoulder. “It has not really mattered. Youth makes much of sex and it's unwise even for Jedi to deny the pressures of biology, past a certain point – ” he smiled and one corner of Obi-Wan's mouth quirked in return “ – but age does change things, certainly for many humans. The pleasures of the body come to mean very little if the mind is not involved. And even with affection … ” Qui-Gon shook his head. “The pleasure of your company was, nearly always, far more satisfying.”

The familiar arch of one copper eyebrow warned him. “'Without affection, it's just fucking?'”

“Now that sounds like a quote.”

“I wonder from who?” Obi-Wan said, tilting his head, sounding wry. “And you were right, and wise.” He paused; took a breath. “But you left out the most dangerous part, you know; I suspect because I wasn't ready to hear it then.”

Qui-Gon raised an eyebrow himself, released his small, sudden surge of apprehension? hope? into the Force.

If Obi-Wan felt it, he didn't let on. “Love, my Master.” And how was it that Qui-Gon had only just realized that when Obi-Wan said _master_ he was saying _love?_ “It makes all the difference in the galaxy.”

Oh, it _was_ hope, sparking – dangerous indeed. “Attachment, my Code-quoting Knight?” Qui-Gon rumbled. “You?”

Obi-wan shook his head slowly. “Love. Attachment is forbidden because it may lead to obsession, to put one before all and there can be nothing before the Force, and our duty as Jedi. But love? Is far more risky than that. Love should be the core of everything we are, everything we _should_ be. And not the general, for-all abstraction that Yoda promotes, but _this_.” His hand tightened around Qui-Gon’s shoulder. “This, solid, physical reality.

“We stand for peace, and justice, but how can we if we don't _feel,_ _experience_ love? And how can we truly claim compassion if we don't _know_ love?”

Obi-Wan's eyes shimmered suddenly, liquid in their blue-gray. “And if that is heresy, then so be it.”

Hope flared from spark to brilliant flame in Qui-Gon's chest, joy and pain together, and his heart stuttered. He'd seen tears in those eyes exactly twice before: when Obi-Wan had been but thirteen, and twelve years later on Naboo, when Qui-Gon himself had been dying on that cold floor.

But Obi-Wan's finger was steady as he drew it, feather-light, along the hinge of Qui-Gon's jaw. “If it had been the will of the Force, if I had not been shown that future, had not been shown how to save you, there on Naboo – if it had not **_worked_** \-- ” He swallowed. “I would have let you go. Never would my need of you speak louder than the Force. I would have trained Anakin, and I would have gone on. I am Jedi. I will live without you.”

Liquid didn't escape, but it looked to be a close-run thing.

“I just don't ever want to.”

Qui-Gon reached up and wrapped one hand around the back of Obi-Wan's head and pulled him down, tucking Obi-Wan's face against his own shoulder, and held him. Just held him. Breathed in the _new-grass_ _black-tea_ smell of him, tinged now with sex but still bone-deep familiar and so very much missed.

Obi-Wan breathed out one slow, unsteady breath before he stilled, lean body going quiet along the length of Qui-Gon's.

Finally. Finally Obi-Wan had seen it, had been willing to walk right up to the knife-edge, the terrible, ecstatic line that Qui-Gon had long been convinced that the Jedi were truly meant to walk and that so few of them had the courage to even acknowledge, never mind the strength to approach. But then his bright, brave, frighteningly intelligent padawan had never, ever lacked for either.

Having found the edge, though, they could not and must not falter, but dance. “We have 'now,' love,” Qui-Gon said, when he was sure his voice would obey him. “That future is not, anymore, thanks to you. But we must – ”

“ _Qui-_ Gon.” If rolling one's eyes had a sound, Obi-Wan was making it then. “So help me Force, if you say 'live in the moment,' I may have to hit you.” His voice was all tones of long-suffering, but Obi-Wan's body twitched in what Qui-Gon thought, hoped, was laughter.

Far better than tears. “Would I do that?”

“Oh, you would.”

Qui-Gon smiled. “Impertinent apprentice.”

“Impertinent _knight_ ,” Obi-Wan corrected him, a lilt beneath that crisp diction.

Qui-Gon hugged him. “Impertinent _beloved_ ,” he said, soft and emphatic, into Obi-Wan's hair.

Obi-Wan stilled again. Then he pushed up far enough to look Qui-Gon in the eyes and there, at last, was that smile.

“Yes,” he said, and kissed Qui-Gon soundly.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> put together for QuiObi Week 2017, by @quiobiweek blog on tumblr. I'm just ducking in here at random, hope somebody enjoys!


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